Timing for this game
5 years ago
Virginia, USA

This game should prioritize IGT timing with one small clarification. Any deaths or restarts should always be "Restart from Checkpoint." When you restart from checkpoint the time you've already played gets added to your total flight time of the mission. Then at the end of every mission it shows your flight time on the mission recap screen where it shows all your kills. This is an accurate timer that helps account for version differences since it's all about mission timer not real time.

If for some reason, you had to exit a mission to change loadout, the mission time can be manually added by looking at how much time expired from the clock while you're paused.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Cendre_Falke likes this
Pennsylvania, USA

No.

IGT would work, if there wasn't several missions of just flat out 15 minute time sinks. You can finish the objective in 2 minutes, and still have to sit for 13+ minutes. At that point, you can just skip those missions, and add an hour or so to the final time, and still have the same time.

RTA is the only way it works.

Its also why theres 17 out of 20 missions. 3 of them you flat out could never beat 15 minutes. (Battle being the other one which is funky)

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Virginia, USA

I don't understand your logic. The static 15 minute missions are always 15 minutes, in a full game run that's never going to change why does that present a problem with timing? The point is that in a game that has a console and PC port with no major differences, timing in RTA with loads is a problem since it's difficult to make autosplitters for console. IGT is accurate, even with mistakes if you always hit restart from checkpoint.

If someone tries to skip a mission, that's literally cheating. The level leaderboards already use game time because it's accurate.

Cendre_Falke likes this
Pennsylvania, USA

You cannot make up time on a static flat 15 minute mission.

And welcome to why Autosplitters are generally bad. Especially if its multi-platform games.

Tl;dr it adds an extra step for runners, having to then keep track of 20 missions worth of times, add it up, convert it, then double check that it didn't get fucked up along the way.

RTA is the only real way for that.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Virginia, USA

You are vastly overestimating the amount of effort involved.

  1. Pause on the score screen for 2-3 seconds before advancing.
  2. Go back through PB vod later and plug the times into a spreadsheet like this one https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CK_rB6_P89TP3YPlOR-ODXu6Vk7uCrT49cFQIkJxgtg/edit#gid=0 (go to file > Make a Copy if you want)
  3. Have IGT.

On some leaderboards the mods will even total it for you if you don't want to do it, just as long as they can access it easily.

I've speedrun other games where this was required due to RTA not being accurate at all. It takes maybe 5 minutes of effort per run.

Cendre_Falke likes this
Pennsylvania, USA

No I'm not. I come from Warframe, where planetary% is IGT.

Literally adds 5+ minutes on, to make sure everything works. (And those runs are 45 minutes, compared to HOURS)

Also taking a 5 hour vod, and trying to grab IGT is also just ass.

No thanks.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Wishmaster likes this
New York, USA

imo if you have 5 hours to spare you can probably spend 5 mins adding up IGT. Ace Combat games also tend to be terrible for RTA due to the random nature of the dialogue scripting. I believe sometimes the enemy bombers at the end of the first mission can sneak in extra dialogue long after the mission has ended, adding ~10 secs unfairly. No doubt there's extra examples of this littered all throughout the game. Also you'd only have to add up times for NG+ runs. For NG you can just look at the flight time in the data viewer (hell you could just keep track of your starting & ending flight time for NG+).

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Cendre_Falke likes this
Pennsylvania, USA

I said those 5 minutes were for a 45 minute run.

I'd imagine its even longer for a 5 hour run.

Considering a good hour alone is auto scrollers, that you can't speed up. You should be punished if you die while going AFK to potty, stretch, do wash, anything.

IGT will not do that. RTA will.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Germany

The problem with the autoscrollers is completely circumvented because if you die in them and restart from checkpoiint, the mission timer is also added.

IGT will allow me to go take a piss between missions really quick, oh jeez, i think that might not be fair ,but im already doing that with hitting pause between missions on a screen that makes it easy to spot whetever or not i splice - i suppose IGT would also solve this issue completely.

(also when is my new run getting approved healbus pls)

Theyre not that long, you only have 20 missions, you could start the vod at "total flight time," change to main menu, restart campaign, do your rnu, and end it afterwards on "total flight time" , that way you can prove you havent spliced, while you can also easily track how much time you spend.

btw

offtopic but what file do i have to remove from my computer to restartthe entire game for a NG run?

AS for the bombers adding random talk: Its if the previous conversation has progressed past a certain point, If youre f aster they dont add it in.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Cendre_Falke likes this
Pennsylvania, USA

You can already use the auto scrollers as breaks.

I did it in my Normal% Run, where I died on the 11th mission cause I was gone too long.

Also, 20 missions, but almost half of them are timer based missions... Just keep it RTA.

Germany

Actually only part of those missions are timer based, for example, its easyto believe that 03 is a timer based mission but if you just break off attacking the arsenal bird at all and focus on shooting down drones as fast as you can you will have a much faster time ,because the event that causes the Arsenal bird to go invulnerable still happens, but new drones dont actually spawn past that point.

This counts for many missions, 16 is another one: the car stops on multiple occasions but if you instantly ID the troops on the road it continues faster, those are just two examples.

all fights against SOL can be accelerated by hitting early hits with an railgun or quick long range missiles, the damage isnt completely gated, only phased,aside from the timermissions wher etheres an literal timer, you can have timesaves almost everywhere.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Cendre_Falke likes this
Pennsylvania, USA

4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 15, 19.

8 total off the top of my head. 4 of which are 15 minute auto scrollers. (2 which has a later bit of the mission afterwards) (This alone is an hour) An additional 2 have 10 minutes before going onto the next objective. (20 minutes) 1 of which is 5 minutes + additional things afterwards. (5 minutes) For a total of 1 hour, 25 minutes of just unskippable bullshit. Mission 10 being the odd one out, but does not have an IGT that I can count on, but it is still an auto scroller, waiting for the plane to fly to where it needs to be. Mission 4 also having a wierd start, with a 10 minute forced section, another 8 minutes after that, and then you can save about a minute on that bit, if you can see the drones going closer to the protection target to end the mission.

The only reason one would want to use IGT over RTA is, IF, and its a huge IF, a PC version is faster than console to run on. (Not accounting for SSDs aftermarket attachments for consoles.)

Unless anyone is gonna bite the bullet, and play on both console and PC to figure that out, its a moot point.

Also you would have to go back and re-time about 5 different 4+ hour runs.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
England

RTA makes the most sense for full game runs of any description in this game. There's just no need to add extra work of dealing with IGTs.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Germany

4:You can be much faster by sticking close to mothergoose and shooting specifically rockets at any APPROACHING UAV, my PB differs from my worst deathless timing by almost 3 minutes. Everything else is not on a timer, you can be significantly faster by finishing the objectives faster, i recommend trying a bomber - theres even alternative dialogue when youre fast 6: autoscroller 7: First contact is NOT an autoscroller: he goes from before: "im a bit excited" (first missile hit)" to "yo mihaly we have to break off" instantly if you hit a singular EML or 2 EML on ace - try it, its actualyl way faster - the fighting sequence is scripted but not an autoscroller, so even on NG youd know eventually where he will fly and how you can land fast rockets for easy hits. 8: 5 min autoscroller into killing 20 convoy trucks, can be optimized with routing quite a bit, the only section of the run that is also a tad RNG; because the poping in of your ground targets can happen early or very late so your lockon will be affected but not more then 5-6 seconds of timeloss tbh. 10: Saves a lot of time on the fight iwth the drone, the plane flies faster if you kill off all SAM's fast, so can save a minute there , phase 2 is non routed but flies with standart mihaly pattern ( immelman into sharp turn into chicken into flying into the sun) so can be easily predicted. 11: auto scroller 12: Nope, also a mission that has huge time disparity between my best and my worst. Hint: the first phase can be minmaxed, some kills on some enemies spawn other waves, some dont, learn those, route em, win 3-6 minutes, 2nd phase is timing based tho, but only 3 or so minutes. i actually failed this one here so its not like its unfailable, setting it up fast actually requires active play. 15: autoscroller, can save massive amounts of times by instantly finding mihaly and instagibbing him once the SOL Squad spawns, with either 2 EMLs or 3 on ace (he has 3 phases, tho, so you cant oneshot him even tho one is technically enough, hit him once before cyclope goes down, while he chases cyclope to make him go dow nfaster and afterwards, and the win is yours, the last hit only is require don ace if you dont hit any rockets, on any other difficulty, 2 shots are enough to win it) 19: autoscroller but only the first 7 minutes ,o n Ace my PB is still 15, and on easy my PB is 9, the arsenal bird has some timing segments to it yes but its not actually a full on autoscroller. The crushing lights segment where count "wishes" the shield away is the only interruption in an otherwise, very precise and not even that easy bossfight (always gets close on ace, i restart on checkpoint on principle.)

The chatter decieves you Velocikitty, you can save tons of time, the only actual non skipable autoscrollers are:

6,8(phase 1), 10, 11,15,19 and those come with the caveates i mentioned.

I can make you a full list of possible time saves and how much you can optimize what level if you wish, and what split you can improve where and which trigger you can skip how its not actually that hard, but even before you ask, yes, flying at 2k+ velocity permanently with a 8x ground missile Multirole fighter in 14 is the biggest timesave, unless you manage to fly 3k+ with the X02 permanently but i doubt thats possible, 14 is deffo the god of all time saves and optimization.

Heres a good argument for RTA THO:

to get back on topic, i sometimes use different planes and different loadouts, and those are not partof the IGT even tho it takes me a few sec to set up ( i use them besides that) , plus going back to airfiled for resupplies is also not added to IGT, both being important to your pace,atleast in my opinion, because even tho i lose 20 seconds on choosing another bird and going back twice, i always fly a save 11 - its never longer then 15:00:00 tho.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Cendre_Falke likes this
Pennsylvania, USA

Whoops, I meant 8, not 7. My bad.

10, he does not speed up. I barely killed any on my first playthrough, and my second was the same rough time (that spawned the ace, since there was nothing better)

I had no issue swapping back and forth between planes. I'd use the F-22 for Longname, and then the Wyvern for most everything else.

I also, as I said before, resupply is already in game, and there is only really one mission where resupplying via checkpoint is easier (And that is 19, to restock before the aresnal bird, but you also lose any weapons you shot off it at the same time.)

IGT is not wroth it. You wanna run IGT, go run ILs. RTA is the only thing to do in a 5+ hour run. Easy enough to splice shit together for IGT with full game runs. (At which point, just create a Segmented run.)

IGT < RTA.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Germany

IN mission 19 you cannot resupply - what even rae you on about? it would be restarting at checkpoint, its Farbanti, in specific where resupplying helps you on ACE difficulty: So you can take air to ship missiles, sink the fleet and the AC10s, and then resupply shortly Before SOL squad pops up to take out the EML for easy quickkills.

Your reasoning repeated does not make for a stronger argument - its not a lot of time that you have to take considering if you run for RTA you can make a snap shot screenshot after every mission or you just star tthe run at the flight time total recorded, and then end it there, for easy quick maths.

its not a 5+ hour run, its barely a 4+ hour run with sub 4 hour being archievable and rather easy.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Cendre_Falke likes this
Germany

I cant seem to create new threads, so im posting it here because of the subject matter being related:

Hello!

I just had a small idea

how about, during full game runs as well as on the leaderboard we do this , and with that, solve the RTA vs IGT debate as well as make sure that we can optimize and save time even on the most boring of all missions:

  1. we adjust our overlay so the score can be seen, this allows the mods to see how much score we have, and how much we need on autoscrollers
  2. Once we reach the minimum required points, we split, then pause the split
  3. later when we submit: we tell the mod where the split occured in the vod, this way he can verify
  4. if you die: reset the split, start the mission again (but you shouldnt)

This helps with optimizing autoscrollers (especially resupplying for time gain which i do a lot when i try to break my score records) and actually making them about skill and routing, as well as with the run's pace. I would easily adopt this and if i would be the only player playing this game, this is prolly how i would time in the future.

What are your thoughts?

Pennsylvania, USA

Jumping through hoops for it.

Still not worth it.

Germany

Well if you woulve read my last Wall of text youd know i made a compeling argument FOR RTA not against it.

In any case, now im kinda just convinced that you are a little bit lazy.

New York, USA

The idea is neat, but I'm just not a fan of manipulating time like that. When would you unpause the timer? (The mission complete popup I guess?)

Cendre_Falke likes this
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